Chris Franzoso says his son could have been a great cornerback and once returned three interceptions for a score in a single freshman game. Ben Franzoso claims not to remember the game.

But when the conversation turns to the team, that's when Ben Franzoso joins in.

"Football is the life game. You learn life lessons through football," he said.

The older men nod their heads in unison at the solemn pronouncement.

I am seated in the Franzoso home for the purpose of learning about the parallel stories of two Winnacunnet championship football teams. The 1983 team and the 2012 squad are separated by nearly 30 years but joined by town, memory and the fact that each had an explosive athlete wearing the No. 34 jersey named Franzoso.

It is a good story.

Chris Franzoso was a junior wingback in a Wing-T offense and defensive back on the 1983 team that went 11-1. Coached by Ken Liporto, the team was built on defense. Tommy Evans was on that team and is in the room as a friend and as the official representative to get the facts straight. He also has worked as a personal trainer for Ben and several other current and former Winnacunnet football players. According to Evans, the 1983 Winnacunnet Warriors allowed 50 points that season "and 25 of them were against Somersworth on a bunch of fluke plays."

Winnacunnet avenged its lone loss in the semifinals, beating Somersworth, 18-12, in overtime. It then beat rival Exeter for the second time that season, 19-7, in the championship game.

Prior to this year it was the last time Winnacunnet had won a title on its home field.

Chris Franzoso did not play football until his sophomore season. Growing up in North Hampton, the son of longtime Wentworth by the Sea head golf pro Dan Franzoso, he had really focused on basketball and baseball.

As a freshman he had been on the varsity soccer team. Apparently Liporto saw a football player masquerading in short pants.

"I only played soccer because my brother, who was a senior, played soccer," Chris said. "I was the king of the yellow card. All I knew how to do was run. I'd run and knock people over."

The next fall, as Franzoso tells it, Liporto told him to show up at football practice at 3:15.

"Coach Liporto didn't give me a choice," he said. "He stood about 6-foot-4. He was an intimidating guy. He wouldn't take no for an answer."

His first season of football was memorable but far from successful. Winnacunnet won one game in 1982. But in the final game, against Exeter, the Warriors played tough and a spark was lit.

"We worked out all summer," Evans said. "We knew we were going to be good."

It is about this time when the similarities in the stories really start to become clear.

Last season the Warriors, like their 1982 forefathers, struggled to a 3-7 record but this year's senior class was convinced they could do better.

"I knew we were going to do it," Ben Franzoso said. "Me and Jordan (Cutting) and Mike (Karpel) we were talking about it in sixth grade. We're going to win state our senior year. Even though we had a bad year in our junior year we knew we could win in our senior year."

In both 1983 and 2012 the top seed in the playoffs — thus the right to host the playoff games — was on the line in the final regular-season game. Both years major storms pushed the game back a day.

But the greatest similarity, Chris Franzoso says, cannot be summarized by a neat statistic or a coincidence. It was the feeling, of shared effort, sacrifice and, ultimately, success.

"By no means do you peak in high school but the reason I wanted Ben and the rest of these kids to feel this was that it really was a special moment in my life," Chris Franzoso said. "And it really had nothing to do with football. It was the camaraderie."

Throughout the 2012 season the spotlight shined on Ben Franzoso. With good reason. Despite missing three games to a groin injury — and being slowed by it in two others — he gained 1,431 rushing yards. Nine of his 13 touchdowns came on runs of 56 yards or more.

But it is when Franzoso talks about his teammates — "my best friends" — that he becomes animated.

Shortly after the end of Ben Franzoso's junior season, friends and the football bonds were put to the test.

Chris Franzoso was diagnosed with throat cancer.

He needed a neck dissection, chemotherapy and 45 days of radiation. Through the recovery process he lost 106 pounds. It was difficult and painful but Franzoso appeared on the mend, with the cancer in remission and his voice remarkably still intact.

Then, due to complications from the pain management medications leading to extreme constipation, his intestine was pierced.

"Ben saved his life," Evans said.

After coming home from school, Ben Franzoso said he heard his dad screaming. Despite his father's protestations, the younger Franzoso emphatically ordered Chris into the car and drove him to the emergency room. Three hours later he received a call his father was in surgery.

"That was pretty bad," Ben said.

Chris Franzoso said he had an unbelievable support system. It included former football teammates like Evans. There were many others, like Hornberger, who had become family friends through Ben's football experiences.

"Thank God, Ben was part of this team because he had someone to lean on," Chris said.

Chris Franzoso said well-intentioned people have said to him that he must be proud of his son because of how well Ben played as a senior.

"It's not that I'm proud of him because he won a state title. I was proud of him a long time ago. But I was so happy for him, so happy that he got to go out and write his own ending," Chris Franzoso said.

I asked Ben Franzoso if he would want his own son to play football.

"Yeah. He doesn't have a choice," the 18-year said. "You learn so much. You have the bonds with those kids the rest of your life."

Advertise

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
seacoastonline.com ~ 111 New Hampshire Ave., Portsmouth, NH 03801 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service